Italians increasingly in difficulty when it comes to buying medicines. In 2024, 463 thousand people had to ask for help from healthcare facilities affiliated with the Banco Farmaceutico to receive free medicines and treatments that they otherwise would not have been able to afford. This is about 8% more than last year. This is one of the data from the book on health poverty (“Tra le crepe dell'universalismo - Disuguaglianze di salute, povero sanità e Terzo settore in Italia”) edited by the Osservatorio sulla Povertà Sanitaria (Observatory on Health Poverty) that will be presented today to the Chamber .
According to the report, the burden of drug expenditure borne by Italian families is increasingly high: last year it increased by 731 million euros , going from 9.91 billion in 2022 to 10.65 billion in 2023. Overall, in 7 years (2017-2023), pharmaceutical expenditure borne by families has grown by 2.576 billion euros (+31.9%).
Those who suffer the most are men (54% of the sample, compared to 46% of women) and adults (18-64 years, 58%). However, about a quarter of those living in health poverty (102 thousand) are minors .
The number of people who limit the number of visits and tests or give up part of the treatments to contain health costs is also increasing. This is a path that in 2023 was followed by a total of 3 million 369 thousand families. The phenomenon concerns poor families (1 in 4 gave up at least once on medical care or visits) but also non-poor families (12.8% gave up at least once).
"The data and analyses of our Observatory on Health Poverty tell of a country in which vulnerable people struggle to take care of their health ," underlines Sergio Daniotti, president of the Fondazione Banco Farmaceutico Ets.
(Unioneonline/vl)
